


Pools

by primalvanguard



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Trauma, Vignette, character study of sorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 15:56:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20156194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/primalvanguard/pseuds/primalvanguard
Summary: He’s a patient mechanism. He can wait.





	Pools

The Dead Universe hasn’t left.

No matter how much distance time put between the stillborn universe and his, Cyclonus can still feel it return to nip at his heels every now and again. Though, he supposed, it was hard to run from something whose very essence had been weaved into your circuitry. Its residual energy trailed after him wherever he went, clinging so stubbornly to his frame like a second coat of paint that he’d long since come to accept it as a part of his very being. He just wishes his spark chamber didn’t feel so tight under his chassis.

The uptick in his venting and erratic thrum of his engine has almost become routine. Something inside him snaps, the scales of balance tip, tip, tip, and then he’s nearly overheating after having manually overridden the commands which would have, should have activated his cooling fans when his fuel pump begins to hammer away under his plating. It’s difficult to pinpoint when it starts—  _ why _ it starts, and even harder to tell when it’ll tide off, but Cyclonus is a patient mechanism. He can wait. All he can do is  _ wait. _

He doesn’t dare bring himself to talk about it. Neither him nor anyone else aboard the ship survived as long as they have by indulging themselves in something so impractical. If he admitted his distress, he’d be admitting vulnerability, which was as good as sending out an invitation for attack. It’s simpler, safer, to turn himself over to the turbulence and let it run its course instead of fixating on the underlying cause for the disorder in his systems. He’d decided how he felt about it long ago.

He’s already sorted through it and neatly compartmentalized it all until the only thing he could feel was numb.

The telltale stutter of a minibot engine is the first thing to alert Cyclonus of his presence when Tailgate finds him at the window. He doesn’t quite feel the fingers entwining themselves in his own— the startling contrast of their warmth against his claws means they’re truly, undeniably there, yet it takes a split second too long for his mind to register their presence. A split second too long, and the little hand has already tentatively guided him back to sit on his berth. Anxiety prickles at the outer reaches of the field tugging at his, but the body settling itself in his lap wins out over the cold threatening to overtake him, washing away the static energy bouncing at his seams. 

It takes a herculean force of will not to retract. The warrior instincts burned into his coding urge him to  _ push away, disarm, engage _ ; a mantra that once proved useful when survival was the only thing at the forefront of everyone’s minds, though useless to him in the face of benignity and innocence. Living in death’s palm for as long as he had made the idea of pure intentions a dizzying one to grasp. But when the delicate digits that were so easily dwarfed by his own brush against his weathered metal, tracing their tips along long-faded scars dotting the battle-worn plum, the tension shackling his frame falls away.

Cyclonus rests his helm on his. The grip on his spark is slackening.

**Author's Note:**

> cyclonus can be.... hard to characterize, i find
> 
> im on tumblr as primalvanguard :o


End file.
